Day: December 19, 2017

    When I first started working at the BBC, in 2001, what struck me was not how most of the people in charge were from the same universities, or that it was assumed you were a ski enthusiast, or how casually people dropped the names of powerful people they knew. It was the uniformity of thinking. There were progressive people and conservative people, but they mostly subscribed to the groupthink of the elite. Surveying the levels of anger, abuse and fractiousness in the upper levels of British society today, it feels like a very different country. The Daily Mail’s front page, attacking the Tory Brexit rebels and triggering an avalanche of threats and abuse, was just the latest example of a culture war inside the British elite that makes any remaining class resentment against t...

    Four men have been arrested on suspicion of plotting terror attacks. Officers from the North East Counter Terrorism Unit detained the men at their home addresses in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, and Chesterfield, Derbyshire, on Tuesday morning. They are being questioned at a police station in West Yorkshire, while three properties in Sheffield and another in Chesterfield are being searched. Three aged 22, 36 and 41, were detained at different addresses in Sheffield, while a 31-year-old man was arrested in Chesterfield. A police spokesman said: The arrests were intelligence led and pre planned as part of an ongoing investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East. He added: We recognise that local people may have concerns as a result of this activity. We would ask peopl...

    In a candid interview, in which he spoke of his musical tastes and style sense, the Labour leader declared: “I’m ready to be Prime Minister tomorrow. And the former backbench firebrand, known for his unkempt appearance, admitted that if he did win the top job he was unlikely to smarten himself up. Mr Corbyn confounded his critics when he thwarted Theresa May’s bid to clinch a majority in June’s snap election. Labour claimed an extra 30 seats compared with the 2015 performance under previous chief Ed Miliband. And Mr Corbyn told Grazia magazine he believes 2018 will be the year in which he pockets the keys to No10. Lord Falconer, the shadow justice secretary, makes clear that he is opposed to nearly every policy so far pledged by his leader and John McDonnell, the shadow ch...